All over the world and especially in India, it is believed that the parents want the best for their child. While that may be true for a large number of parents, there are some who this may not be true for.

There are two main reasons for this:

One is that there is a huge difference between what parents think might be best for the child and what is actually good.

The second reason that the parent is unable to control their emotional issues and despite knowing what is good for the child are not able to provide it.

Although there are many emotional problems that an adult can have, many do get noticed and hopefully this means that parents get help and treatment before it escalates to the level that it may harm the child. However, anger and depression go unnoticed for a very long time. People think that the child’s naughtiness or problems are causing the parent to be angry. However, the likelihood of not only having an emotional problem but also giving it to your child due to social interactions is quite high.

So are you wondering if you fall in this category?

Then look at some of the questions below:

Is your child scared to speak his mind with you?

Do you beat your child very often?

When you are angry at the child, is it in proportion to the error or mistake they made?

Do you take any efforts to reconcile with a child after yelling at them?

Is your child also starting to show signs or angry or sad mood for long periods of time?

Does your child have his meals on time?

Does your child have his books, toys and other materials as and when he needs them?

If you answered yes to any of the first five questions and no to the last two, there may be a cause for concern. It is likely that you did know till today that you had any issues, and you probably got it from your own parents’ faulty style of parenting too. Anger and depression can interfere with relationships making them strained and brittle.

It’s still not too late. If you identify yourself as a parent who may be angry, depressed or otherwise emotionally affected, now is the time to make it better. Remember, it’s not just a question of your health, but your relationship with your child as well as significant others. Relationships at both work and home with get better if you work on this.

The best way to deal with emotional concerns is to see a counselor or psychologist who works in these areas. It is better to go to someone who specialize in parent-child relationships. Just self-help books or articles over the internet will not solve the problem completely. It is imperative that you work on yourself and on the relationship you have with the child – with an expert and actively undo the damage that’s been done.

Anyone who has seen a "Ranjhnaa" movie will know how much attractiveness matters to teenagers. However, there is no doubt that attractiveness may give people an edge and they may sometimes use to others’ disadvantage. But is it only among teenagers?

As it turns out, that’s not quite true. Attractiveness plays a huge role in mate-selection and marriage partners throughout life. It even impacts political campaigns and careers.

We already know how it affects the world of acting.

But why is it that we prefer attractiveness?

Is there something to this beyond the ‘good look’ aspect?

Or is this just socialization, that is, we were raised such that attractiveness has a high social value, and it is so ingrained that we believe in it?

A lot of research has been done independently on attractiveness and popularity as well as combining the two together.

In a nutshell, popularity research suggests that there actually are 2 kinds of popularity.

1st is likeability, or how much people like you.

2nd is social dominance or how much access to resources you have.

It may seem like the same thing but there is a subtle difference. The latter means you get what you want, and the former means people find you nice and approachable. The latter kind is what becomes really important from adolescence onwards.

Babies also prefer ‘attractive’ faces.

Research on attractiveness shows that babies who do not actually have any exposure to media or socialization that may gear them towards attractive, also prefer ‘attractive’ faces. But aspects of a face that make it attractive are symmetry and pleasantness (no frowns, more smiles). When researchers averaged faces using software, the more faces they combined for an average, the more attractive it looked to respondents.

Evolution suggests that a person with a healthy genetic trait (as inferred by attractiveness/symmetry) is more likely to be a good add to one’s potential gene pool. A pleasant face is also less likely to belong to a person who may not harm us. However, there are some social traits that go with attractiveness when it comes to adolescents and adults.

Theorists suggest that because attractiveness makes us prefer attractive people more, these people get more attention from parents, other children as well as other adults, which gives them a lot more practice is social skills than others who are not perceived as attractive. So if attractive people do have better social skills that take them places (money, status, promotion, power, a wealthy life partner) – it’s simply because they got more practice!

What does it boil down to?

Yes, attractiveness is important. But, it is NOT what teen magazines stress. Attractiveness is about pleasantness and symmetry in face, posture, dressing and behaviour. So the old ‘be presentable’ adage your parents and grandparents would speak about? It’s totally legit. Attractiveness, for the most part, is presentability.

Public speaking has become an important part of life. Be it debate and elocution competitions in schools, or sitting in Group Discussions as a part of interview process or giving talks, presentations and other vocal activities as part of school and work, some public speaking skill seems to be essential to succeed everywhere. Even if you are in a career where there isn’t a lot of it demanded, even a simple aspect of work like presenting a progress report can be made much better if the presenter has some essential skills.

Some of the greatest orators in the world have been studied over time, and a few aspects that are common to them have emerged. These can be applied to daily life and public speaking opportunities to do much better at the demands of today’s life.

Preparation: Great speakers present well on the topic and do not just read off from a paper a speech that was prepared by someone else. They think from the listener’s perspective: what would they like to hear? If I were in the audience, how would I like this material to be presented?

They also read on topics which are related so that they are prepared for questions or to change tacks if they see the audience getting bored. They anticipate questions from the point of view of the listener and keep some fun facts up their sleeve to jazz thing up.

Presentation: How you arrange technical aspects is important. From your voice, your dress, to actual physical objects in your presentation space, all add to or take away from the clarity you can have. For PowerPoint presentations, keep them simple and uncluttered because audience cannot read and listen to you at the same time. Check out the book ‘Presentation Zen’ for more on PowerPoint presenting. Try not to talk from behind a podium because it hinders your connection with the audience. However, if there is no choice, use your hands a lot and lean forward to show you want to connect with your audience. Do so voice warmup exercises and make sure your throat is fine on the day of speaking. Wear simple, elegant clothing that does not attract too much attention.

Engagement: Engaging with the listeners is crucial. Take pauses, see if they understand – don’t just prattle off. If they are getting bored, change tacks or use a fun fact. Use less jargon, and avoid using long sentences. Move from one concept to another in a logical flow and sum up at the end. Have questions towards the end and answer them to the best of your ability. If you do not know, humbly say so. No point getting into an ‘I’m the expert’ fight with an audience member. Diplomacy is the key.

Feedback: Finally, be open to feedback. Ask audience what could have been done better. Do mock sessions with friends and family and ask where you can improve. Use this feedback to improve on your technique and you’ll be an ace speaker in no time!

All of us are face with working lives where we have multiple roles and duties. Some of us seem to be doing effortlessly well in our jobs while others struggle.

Why does this happen?

There are many aspects to dealing with work pressure successfully. According to research in job stress, the following tips can help you manage work pressure at a personal level.

Time management

We have limited work hours, and it is important to make a time-schedule for your duties. Not only is it important to have a deadline for the whole task, but it even helps to have a time boundary for the smaller steps of each task. Therefore, even if one step has taken more time than it should, you know then and there about the changes to be made.

Goal setting

Following from time management, it is important to know how to set goals, if they are to be allotted time boundaries. Goals should be systematic, attainable and time-bound. Very ambitious goals are unlikely to be achieved. After this, each step that would need to be accomplished before the next step has to be noted down.

Stress management

Stress helps us to realize that a deadline is approaching. However, beyond that if stress or worry bothers us, they get in the way of our work. Physical exercise, breathing techniques, relaxation, yoga and a general healthy lifestyle helps to keep stress at bay.

Work relationships

Most of us need the help of our juniors, seniors and colleagues to get work done. Therefore, it is important to have good work relationships. Greet and smile people genuinely, and compliment them on their good work. Asserting yourself works better than aggression in times of disagreement.

Anger management

A lot of talented employees do not make it to the top because their anger does not let them concentrate. It also spoils the relationships they have with bosses, juniors and colleagues and this gets in their way of climbing the ladder. Anger can be managed well by using de-escalation techniques. This involves thinking about the signs which tell you when you are getting angry. As your temper is rising, you have to do certain mental exercises like a complex calculation, counting backwards, deep breathing or some other pranayama methods. De-escalation means to stop the anger mid-way before it escalates.

Work-life balance

Lastly, a highly valued employee is one who is vibrant and fresh when coming to work each day. You are more likely to generate ideas and do high quality work, if you are fresh each morning at work. This is not possible if you are in the habit of carrying work back home. The reason being, that unless you take a break, a bunch of your brain cells are continuously doing the same work, and they get too tired to function when it actually matters.

This is the same principle why mugging up last minute before the exam does not help increase your scores. Therefore, interacting with family and friends, doing things you like and getting good sleep is also important to handle work pressure.

Feeling stressed is quite common these days. Demands on individuals have increased and the pace of life has really picked up. We always have to get so many things done all at once.

In such a hectic and busy life, is it possible to manage our stress?

Yes, definitely. One only needs to know how.

The most effective key to stress relaxation is to use one’s breath adequately. Increased oxygen intake can reach the brain within seconds and help to calm us. There are many kinds of relaxation and breathing techniques, the easiest to understand and practice are 4-square breathing, JPMR muscle relaxation, and mindfulness meditation.

4 square breathing:

Inhale (for four counts) 1,2,3,4

Hold 1,2,3,4

Exhale 1,2,3,4

Rest 1,2,3,4

This is like 4 sides of a square, thus called four square breathing. This can be repeated multiple times till the person feels calmer.

8 muscle group relaxation:

Each muscle group has to be tensed for 30 seconds and then released before moving on to the next muscle group. The eyes should be closed while doing this.. When doing this for the first time, start with one or two rounds of it.

Upper chest and chest – inhaling into the upper lungs and holding for a count of ten

Shoulders – picking them up towards the ears

Back of the neck – pushing the head back

Face – squinting eyes, scrunching features towards the tip of the nose.

Forehead and scalp – raising eyebrows.

(You can give a gap of 30 seconds or more between each muscle group)

Mindfulness meditation:

Mindfulness is a school of thought that believes in concentrating in the moment completely, and doing only one task at a time.

It is easy for our mind to jump, and this contributes to the restlessness we often feel that makes us stressed. Although mindfulness is a philosophy that can be extended to the whole day, you can start by practicing meditation.

Hands rest on the thighs, facing down.

The eyes are somewhat open and the gaze rests gently on the floor in front of you about four to six feet away.

The idea is that whatever is in front of you is what's in front of you. Don't stare or do anything special with your gaze; just let it rest where you've set it.

Begin by just sitting in this posture for a few minutes in this environment. If your attention wanders away, just gently bring it back to your body and the environment.

The key word here is "gently." Your mind will wander; that's part of what you will notice with your mindfulness: minds wander. When you notice that yours has wandered, come back again to body and environment.

The second part of the practice is working with the breath. In this practice rest your attention lightly (yes, lightly) on the breath.

Feel it as it comes into your body and as it goes out. There's no special way to breathe in this technique.

Once again, we are interested in how we already are, not how we are if we manipulate our breath.

If you find that you are, in fact, controlling your breath in some way just let it be that way.